Perch v4

First off let me say I was excited to hear about the upcoming release of v4! Thanks, Drew and Rachel for all of your work on Perch. I received the email regarding the new licensing and I think it's a great approach for sustainability. I've used other CMS products that were essentially abandoned by the developers when license sales didn't cover the amount of time and effort involved in maintenance and support. I get that too, but it left me as the designer holding the bag and scrambling to take care of my clients. So thank you again for working to develop a new licensing model rather than closing up shop.

The announcement email raised a few questions for me that I hope you may be able answer as I anxiously await the new release. (I also understand if you choose to reveal this at a later date instead of answer via the forum.)

1. I've got a handful of projects that I will need Perch licenses for in the next month or so. There's no real pressing timeframe on them so I can wait if need be, but I was wondering how buying now vs. waiting will affect me.

2. How will the new release affect unapplied upgrades to Runway that are currently in our account? Will I be able to use that on a v4 Perch license or must it be used on a v3 license?

3. Assuming that Perch 4 will still be 2 products, Perch and Perch Runway, do you anticipate a difference in license renewal prices between the two products after 12 months to maintain support and upgrades?

Thanks for your time in considering these questions and again, for the work you put into Perch.

I wasn't anticipating a change to how licensing works and therefore would like to know what the ongoing pricing is going to be.

Many of the updates in the V3 cycle were not always necessary unless there was a specific problem, it was great that we were told but beyond the 12 months I am wondering if the product will be "feature complete" and whether updates after that point will be non-security related.

1. I've got a handful of projects that I will need Perch licenses for in the next month or so. There's no real pressing timeframe on them so I can wait if need be, but I was wondering how buying now vs. waiting will affect me.

Remember you don't need to buy a license until your project is ready to go live. So you can defer that decision until you're ready to launch the site and see where things stand then. We're not looking to introduce major BC breaks in 4 if it can be helped.

3. Assuming that Perch 4 will still be 2 products, Perch and Perch Runway, do you anticipate a difference in license renewal prices between the two products after 12 months to maintain support and upgrades?

...I was wondering whether or not the promised cloud functionality would also encompass localhost since I am currently using MAMP and was considering their cloud extension for a one-off fee however if Perch will do this, then I would much prefer an all-in-one solution.

The part that says "digital relocation assistant" is of interest to me since I am not always working on the same system and I feel it is a modern approach but I would also like to include the actual Website I am working on or as I believe Rachel once put it "source of truth".

Hi Drew, I'm a newbie who has dabbled with Perch 3 recently on a local install. I'm very interested in using it for an upcoming project (in about 2 months) but realise that v4 is just round the corner. Would you recommend I hold tight for v4 or start learning v3 in earnest and then upgrade? Is v4 significantly in different in implementation?